HOLDING SYNCH DURING PLAYBACK – DVCPRO HD/LONG TIMELINES

[Randy Johnson]

I have the same issue…but not with DV material only HDV and 24p…I wish I could help you.
I am using fcp 5
Kona 2
K-box
5.5gb ram
dual raid scsi hard drives.

[Shane Ross]

Well, for working with long projects, I tend to break them up into smaller sequences. Since I edit TV I have the benefit of being able to work with Acts, the sections between the commercials. These are never longer than 20 min. And people who cut film tend to break up their sequences by reel…again, 20 min. So maybe you can break your sequences up into sections.

When it comes time to output, I export the entire timeline as a self contained Quicktime Movie, reimport it into FCP, then output. No sync issues.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Jeremy Garchow]

GO to your preferences and make sure that report dropped frames is on. Perhaps you are dropping frames and don’t even know it. FCP will try to keep up, but when it does it will often lose sync.

If that doesn’t work, mix down your audio by selecting all (command-a) then hitting option-apple-r. This will help with playback.

Make sure all of your effects are rendered, even the ones marked ‘full’. Render it all.

Jeremy

[Jim Blokland]

Hi folks:

Thanks for the responses. I wouldn’t think that FCP with a RAID array should be dropping frames on a mini-dv drama with very few effects — and this is on a 40-minute timeline with only about 8 tracks of audio. I certainly have no drop frame issues or synch issues with the same rig but running AVID XPRESS PRO HD.

I wonder if it could be something else…

This is a major consideration for me, as I’m about to cut a feature film and can’t afford to output to Quicktimes just to be able to screen for the clients…

Any other tips out there?

Thanks in advance.

Best, JIM.

OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO

[Jeff Coleman]

Just recently you noticed sync issues? What were the last known combination of software versions that didn’t display this problem with long timelines?
What version of QT are you running?

Love,
Jeff

Final Cut Studio 5.1, G5 2GHz Dual Processr, 2.5Gb RAM, AJA IO

[Jim Blokland]

Hey Jeff:

I had the synch issues on the last 2 projects, completed in summer & fall 2006. At the time I was running OS 10.4.6 (if memory serves…) and whatever the concurrent QT version was. I can’t really comment as to when I didn’t have the issue, as probably most other projects before these were reasonably short and I just may have not noticed. (I’ve been meaning to post this anomaly for awhile, but I’ve been using AXP for the last 5 months or so on some other gigs.)

Perhaps I’ll try a playout this weekend of one of the old projects with the software I’ve got now (10.4.9, Quicktime 7.1.3) and see if I still have the issue.

Best, JIM.

OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO

[Jtv Preditor]

Be sure to check the audio bit rate of the original camera recording. Some mini-DV cameras have a 32 khz, 12 bit setting as a default instead of the 48 khz standard. If captured and dropped into a 48 khz timeline, the long clips will drift out of sync.

JTV Preditor

[Jim Blokland]

Hi folks:

I know this goes a bit back, but I think I have tracked down the problem…one thing I neglected to mention was that I was running an M-AUDIO Firewire 410 box as an audio interface — and I think that was the culprit.

Somehow, there seems to be a synch drift via firewire on this box, that gets cleared up as soon as you stop and start the sequence again. I listened to the same project that was going out of synch — but this time via the Mac’s audio outs — no loss of synch.

Guess I’ll be hooking up my K-Box again and going back to 2-channel RCA outs for monitoring.

Best, JIM

OSX.4.3
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.2 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO